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Today I was assigned to the recovery ward, which could have been interesting but I'm much more interested in pregnancy, birth and the newborns so I asked whether I could spend the day in the nursery instead. I could! So i spent the morning with the babies, I watched the nurse take blood, give injections and I was allowed to weigh the babies, take their temperatures and check their breathing and heart rate with the stethoscope. It is so amazing listening to those little hearts pumping away. Then I was told that there was a woman who was scheduled for a cesarean at 1pm so we went to her room and checked the babies heart rate and made sure that the woman was okay and filled in all of the paper work. A few hours later it was time for the woman to be admitted into the OR so I scrubbed up and followed the pediatric nurse in. A few minutes later a baby boy was born, his lungs cleared before being shown to his mother. He was then taken to the nursery to be checked. The pediatric nurse gestured for me to follow her (and the baby) which was great because I was really interested to see what procedures were undertaken on the baby after birth. He was weighed, fingers and toes counted, temperature taken, eyes, ears checked, heart rated monitored, vaccinations given before he was placed in an incubator to be given oxygen and to be kept warm before he could go to his mother who was recovering from her cesarean! I spent an hour by the baby's side just sitting by him before I had to leave him to return to the Gap Medics house.
I have spent this evening skyping home and having a bit of me time. I've been away for almost 5 weeks and still have about 5 and a bit until I am home again so I think I was due to be feeling a little homesick.
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